Reliance Properties has submitted their formal application to rezone 1166 West Pender Street, currently a 15-storey office building located on an 18,630 SF site. Reliance acquired the site through an off-market sale by our team in 2016 for $71,400,000 shortly after which the building’s sole tenant, Canada Revenue Agency, vacated the building. The building has subsequently been leased by another federal government tenant on a shorter term basis.

The plan to redevelop the property envisions as 31-storey office building, to the maximum height allowable when factoring building shadowing performance into account.

The rezoning proposal includes:

• 355,000 SF of office space;
• Average floorplates of 12,181 SF;
• 3,500 SF of retail space;
• a total density of 18.73 FSR;
• a building height of 387.5 ft.;
• six levels of underground parking with 199 vehicle parking stalls and 198 Class A bicycle parking spaces.

The application describes the architectural building character as follows: “1166 West Pender will house 31 floors of office space, blending high design, ecological responsibility, and civic enhancement. The building brings strategic densification to the area, adding 354,978 sf of office space and commercial amenities to a constrained site in the downtown Coal Harbour neighbourhood. Replacing an existing 15-storey office tower, the sinuous 31-storey tower will introduce a strong architectural presence and enhance the public realm. The shape and form of the tower are directly informed by the surrounding buildings and the limitations of the site. Convex and concave exterior walls respond to the contours of the adjacent buildings to form an undulating body wrapped in ceramic-fritted curtain wall glazing. A curved white glass curtain wall affords unobstructed views and establishes a distinct character and impressive presence. The ceramic frit also reduces thermal transmission, lowering heating and cooling costs and improving the building’s sustainability.”

This application is being considered under the Rezoning Policy for the Central Business District (CBD) and CBD Shoulder and the Higher Buildings Policy.

The architect team for the project is Hariri Pontarini Architects with IBI Group.

A revised development permit application has been approved for the proposed 13-storey hotel on the Edward Chapman site at 833 West Pender. The project is somewhat unique in that the site is only 52′ x 120′.

An application was originally made by Executive Group in January 2017 after they acquired the site in 2016. The application required some tweaks but has now been approved at the Development Permit Board. Here are the details of the project:

• 106 hotel rooms (9 rooms per floor)
  
• Restaurant on the ground floor;
• Building height of approximately 154 ft;
• A total density of 10.33 FSR;
• A common roof deck amenity for guests including rooftop bar;
• 20 underground valet parking spaces accessed from the lane via car elevator.

The zoning for the site allows for 9.0 FSR, but up to 15% increase for hotel use.

Executive Group plans to open the 202-room Exchange Hotel in the lowrise portion of the Exchange Tower later this year.

The architect for the project is Studio One Architecture.

Somewhat hidden behind the news of the Housing Vancouver Strategy announcement, is a new policy proposal for CACs for commercial and rental-only residential developments. The overall plan proposed in the policy report entitled “CAC Policy Update: Simplifying CACs on New Rental Housing and Commercial Development” is to cease negotiating CACs on commercial rezonings and some rental rezonings.

The City’s proposal is intended to “simplify the City’s development contribution system which includes DCLs, CACs, density bonusing and other mechanisms. The proposed changes will provide greater clarity and certainty on development contributions for rezoning applicants. The recommended changes will streamline the CAC process for both secured market rental and commercial-only rezoning applications to enable a majority of these project types to be brought to market sooner.”

The recommendations in the proposed policy include the following:

Recommendation A – Exempt routine, lower density secured market rental rezoning applications from CACs

The City would exempt rental applications from CAC negotiations where the density proposed is low, or consistent with area zoning. The table below shows where CACs would be exempt for rental based on height guidelines:

Recommendation B – Remove CAC negotiation on commercial-only rezoning 

The City intends on removing the CAC negotiation process (which can prolong the application timeline significantly) for commercial applications in the Downtown, Metro Core, Grandview Employment Area and South Vancouver Industrial Lands. This would not apply for proposed stratified commercial space.

The City will also introduce commercial linkage targets, which are intended to show the correlation between additional commercial space and workforce related childcare spaces and affordable housing. The commecial linkage targets will be fixed $/SF amounts calculated on the net additional density for commercial rezonings in the Downtown and Metro Core areas. 

The interim Commercial Linkage Targets will be as follows:As industry consultation has already occurred for these items, they could take effect almost immediately after Council adoption.

A full copy of the policy report can be viewed here: http://council.vancouver.ca/20171128/documents/a4.pdf

Oxford Properties has changed the design plan for their 1133 Melville Street office building project, originally proposed for rezoning back in July 2015. The previous design was not supported at the Urban Design Panel in 2015, and has since been reworked with a smaller, but taller building.

The new design by James Cheng, features a much more interesting building massing. The revision includes stacked box design with the third box twisted from the street grid. There is a slight increase in height from 33 to 34-storeys. Details include:

• a building height of 550 ft.
• a total floor area of 555,047 SF
• a total density of 18.20 FSR (down from 22.46 FSR)
• four floorplate sizes, multiple decks including a rooftop deck
• floor to ceiling windows
• six levels of underground parking (231 vehicle spaces and 221 bicycle spaces)

The previous rezoning application can be viewed here: http://rezoning.vancouver.ca/applications/1133melville/index.htm

Amacon‘s formal rezoning application has been submitted to the City of Vancouver for a 24,289  SF land assembly at Robson between Cambie and Beatty that includes the Catholic Charities Men’s Hostel and the commercial building at 118 Robson Street (home to the bar/restaurant now known as ‘Back Forty’).

The plan calls for rezoning from DD to CD-1 to redevelop the site with a 29-storey mixed-use development and 6-storey podium, including:

• Retention and restoration of the existing Northern Electric Building facade;
• Hotel, commercial and residential uses, including 131 residential units;
• 42 one-bedroom units, 71 two-bedrooms and 18 three-bedrooms;
• Five levels of underground parking
• A total density of 10.08 FSR; and
• A building height of 290 ft.

The application describes the design rationale:

New shelter space will be provided for the existing Catholic Charities shelter, as part of the agreement between the developer and Catholic Charities. This rezoning application is being considered under the Rezoning Policy for the Central Business District (CBD) and CBD Shoulder.

The architect for the project is GBL Architecture.